Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Union Re-use Fees

Union Workers on Parade - 1909

Dear Rich: I am trying to navigate the complex world of union reuse fees - can you suggest any resources? Sorry, we've come up short and we're hoping maybe our readers can suggest something. As you are aware a re-use fee is a payment made to union members: either the American Federation of Musicians (AFM), or the Screen Actor's Guild (SAG)/American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA. These fees are sometimes paid when musical or related material is reused and is subject to union agreements. Usually, when it comes to music licensing questions, one can turn to Kohn on Music Licensing, but we couldn't find any references in the index. The only other course of action would be to align yourself with a licensing agent/lawyer (for example, Greenlight), or contact the unions (links above) for more direction. Also, when searching for information, "re-use" is sometimes spelled without the hyphen. (BTW, does "non-hyphenated" get a hyphen?)

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